☀️Hisoka x Chrollo🌙

~ a short analysis on Hisoka and Chrollo from Hunter x Hunter by Yoshihiro Togashi.

In the realms of Hunter x Hunter, Togashi’s wide-spanning saga of supernatured persons in cross-cutting conflicts, there are many prerequisite abilities a proverbial Hunter must have. Speed, strength, intelligence. Iron will. That uncanny capacity to see a vision through with action and willpower could be the most vital element of all in the makeup of a legendary Hunter. 

Hisoka and Chrollo each share the superpower of an absolute will. 

Though they are cast along opposing spectrums in terms of a Hunter’s potential persona and purpose, these two antagonists x anti-heroes make for an unassailably interesting analysis on the dialectics of Hunter conflicts within Hunter x Hunter.

Sun & Moon 

There is a polarity to every great conflict. Personality and power are polarized well in consideration of master rivals like Hisoka and Chrollo. They share the capacity for passion and the art of performance. One is a lone wanderer while the other leads a super group of underground criminals. There is an undeniable dialectic, and therefore intuitive sense, to their clashing equivalency. 

The murderous clown with bungee gum features primarily as a jack-of-all-trades style martial action menu; Hisoka’s hand-to-hand combat abilities paired with the creative fuckery of invisible rubber webs across the area make him a nightmare on the battlefield. // The shadowy leader of The Phantom Troupe carries a book of complex abilities to be synergized; Chrollo’s chameleonic charisma plays a key role in his power level as he must meet or befriend many others to gather their Nen into his pages. 

Hisoka moves and murders freely with a smile throughout the world while Chrollo and the Troupe plan their carnage, always aiming for profits. As moral agents, each are mass killers of no small renown. However, Hisoka seeks out the rigors of death’s door for his pleasure and his pleasure alone. Whereas Chrollo started the path of team-based villainy as a kind of vengeance against the monstrous injustices of the world, seen from the moon-drenched pits and blood-soaked woods of Meteor City. 

Hisoka is like a lion, or a lone wolf, always searching out scents, hungry as the devil.

Chrollo is the head of a spider, with complex legs as machinery for manifold machinations. 

Individualist vs. Collectivist

Hisoka, as a jester, must represent the joker card. The one card in the deck that can be exactly what you need. Wild and free, able to take the form of whatever is required in the moment, at the will of the player’s soul alone. Hisoka, the laughing murder clown and master manipulator of minds and matter, melds every archetype, from warrior to monk to magician to lover. He is at home in the mystery and spins lies as naturally as breaths. Hisoka is the character you most want to see influencing the plot, moving it toward more transformative grounds; Hisoka is the man you least want to see hunting you down. Hisoka is his own man, living as he may. He acts for him and him alone. The ultimate individualist, Hisoka won’t explain himself and maybe he doesn’t yet know either.

Chrollo, the boss, must wield a purpose to carry a gang. Chrollo Lucilfer has always seen himself as part of a collective. The orphans of Meteor City had to stay together to survive while living in battle within a land of exiles and lawlessness. It was there in the trenches that Chrollo and his gathering troupe of child vagabonds learned first-hand of some of the world’s most dire evils. Child trafficking. Child sacrifice. Everything we see from The Spider is the result of a will to power inside of Chrollo to resist and reshape the world of humans around him, of which he can no longer relate nor sanction the free reign of.

Lust + Greed

Hisoka is addicted to mortal combat, martial arts, the bloody sport of competitive murder.

Chrollo is a thief, a consummate professional, and a spiritual athlete with a killer instinct. 

To many, Hisoka is truly the fifth protagonist of the saga. His grounding dynamic with Gon during the Hunter Exam, and the resulting rivalry they share, mark him for continuing significance in the plot. Hisoka arrives right when Togashi needs him to, at arenas or cityscapes or the overlands of video game worlds. His interests (and perversions) toward Gon and Killua are in part because he can anticipate the wondrous path of growth they are on. Hisoka can see their vast potential clear as day, for Nen prowess and for future mortal combat. This lust for challenge is what makes Hisoka the animal that he is. And it is this lust that drives him into endlessly hunting Chrollo for battle and unto death. 

Chrollo’s cardinal sin is undoubtedly greed. He believes he can lift the world’s knowledge and power, use it for himself, and not ever have a debt to repay, just as long as he is quick and clever and convicted in his course. He also believes The Spider can outlive him, headless. Chrollo relies on his Troupe not just to carry out his plans but to supply his deck of Nen combat abilities with the necessary cards he needs to overcome martial tyrants like Hisoka. Chrollo leads The Spider into heisting York New in order to pit themselves against a true challenge, in tedium or avarice or both. The Spider’s willingness to kill anyone before them posits a certain rapturous nihilism; the Troupe’s familial soul-to-soul commitments between members, and the wondrous tributes they play for one another, reconfigure their moral agency into something beautifully beyond good and evil. 

As paragon Hunters, Hisoka & Chrollo are seeking their endless ends; they want evermore expansion, a neverending hunt for thrills, kills, loot, persons, personas, Nen abilities, Nen maneuvers, and raw elemental experience. 

Hisoka & Chrollo are the (second) Sun and Moon of Hunter x Hunter, a pair of perfect icons.